Police fight cellphone recordings
Witnesses taking audio of officers arrested, charged with illegal surveillance
Simon Glik, a lawyer, was walking down Tremont Street in Boston when he saw three police officers struggling to extract a plastic bag from a teenager’s mouth. Thinking their force seemed excessive for a drug arrest, Glik pulled out his cellphone and began recording.
Within minutes, Glik said, he was in handcuffs.
“One of the officers asked me whether my phone had audio recording capabilities,’’ Glik, 33, said recently of the incident, which took place in October 2007. Glik acknowledged that it did, and then, he said, “my phone was seized, and I was arrested.’’
The charge? Illegal electronic surveillance.
read more here: Police fight cellphone recordings
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Luckily (from the same article),
"But one Pennsylvania jurisdiction has reaffirmed individuals’ right to videotape in public. Police in Spring City and East Vincent Township agreed to adopt a written policy confirming the legality of videotaping police while on duty. The policy was hammered out as part of a settlement between authorities and ACLU attorneys representing a Spring City man who had been arrested several times last year for following police and taping them."
The National Association of State Legislatures categorizes the Pennsylvania Electronic Surveillance law as perhaps the "toughest law in the states" . See Title 18 Part II Article F Chapter 57 HERE
Another description of PA's Surveillance Law
"WIRETAPPING & ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE IN PENNSYLVANIA
By: Eric M. Noonan
Assistant Executive Deputy Attorney General
Organized Crime & Narcotics
The general rule in Pennsylvania is that electronic surveillance is illegal. For the purposes of this article, "electronic surveillance" shall include the interception (to include recording) of electronic (digital pagers, computers/e-mail, fax machines), oral (face-to-face conversations where there is an expectation of privacy/non-interruption) and wire (telephone conversations) communications. This general rule, and certain limited exceptions thereto, appear in Pennsylvania's Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act, 18 Pa. C.S. § 5701, et seq.
Some 41 other states nationwide have their own wiretapping/electronic surveillance statutes. These statutes follow either a "one party consent" or "two/all party consent" rule. The former creates an exception to the foregoing general prohibition if one of the parties to the intercepted communication is aware of, and has consented to the interception. The latter reflects a more restrictive rule -- that being that both, or all parties to the intercepted communication must be aware of and have consented to its interception. Pennsylvania falls into the latter, more restrictive category."
view complete article HERE
As for the status of Philly's public surveillance program:
"In late 2007, Philadelphia government announced its plan to install 250 surveillance cameras by 2008. Unfortunately, it’s now 2009 and only 161 cameras have been installed. Out of these 161, only 98 of these cameras are usable and another 63 are sitting there waiting to be activated. The 63 cameras that are being unused have been covered in black plastic bags."
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